Archives

San Juan, el nuevo Seattle

Spend time in the reggaeton enclaves of San Juan and you can feel a creative charge reminiscent of Seattle in the early 1990s, when grunge trickled out into the mainstream, or Harlem and the Bronx in the 1980s, when rap became an export.

"In the beginning, we couldn't even get anyone to listen to our music," said Joel Diaz, 23, a clerk at the popular reggaeton clothing shop Bounce in the Plaza Las Americas mall. "Now the world is paying attention and listening to what will come out of Puerto Rico. No one thought it would happen in such a large way. Even parents who prohibited it are now dancing to it."

…

Carolina and Old San Juan, the historic neighborhood founded by Spanish settlers in the 1500s, are where the largest concentration of reggaeton clubs and bars are. On a recent Saturday at 3 a.m., it was not hard to track the Noise, a club on a narrow side street, because the pink colonial-style house was practically jumping with bass.